XPS 400 - Floppy Diskette seek failure

I'm getting the following message:

"floppy diskette seek failure
Strike the F1 key to continue, F2 to run the setup utility"

Could this be a sign that my hard drive is busted and the computer is going down the boot order to the floppy (which I don't have)?

I'm getting two beeps when the computer starts up. 1,2, and 3 are lit up on the diagnostic panel.

 

I had this issue with my old computer (which was a cheap WinFast chipset). It happened because whenever the power went out, my BIOS settings defaulted to factory.

To fix the issue, go in to the BIOS and there should be an option to disable the floppy seek. If the floppy drive is in the boot up queue, remove it.

"Save and quit" your BIOS and hopefully, that should do the trick!

 

So my bios version is A07... I'm not seeing an option to remove it from the boot up quene, but if the hard drive is ahead of it, then wouldn't it indicate that something is wrong with the hard drive if its skipping over the hard drive and going to the floppy to boot?

 

In the BIOS, there should be a separate option to disable the floppy drive altogether.

I looked up your BIOS documentation and you should be able to find it by going to:

System Setup Options->Drives->Diskette Drive

It should be set to OFF.

See the BIOS documentation for further instructions.

Documentation

 

Worked for me. The floppy seeking is gone. But now the computer just won't start up. What should I do to pinpoint where the problem is coming from?

 

How to Run the Dell? Diagnostics Utility | Dell

Should tell you if there's a major problem like a drive failure/etc.